


Breathe out

by BlueMoonHound



Series: The Secret Love Life of Barry Bluejeans [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Trans Character, Transphobia, actually two of those, casual fisticuffs, for once i write something that isnt angst based, may add more tags, no transphobia from tagged characters!, past trauma, pre-century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: It's nice. For the first time in half a decade, Barry's boss isn't the only person he can talk to about his gender. He has a friend who isn't also his superior.Making bonds is good. It feels good. Barry feels a little more grounded by the bonds he creates, especially now that he's working on that project.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! Not Smut work, also, getting a closer look on character bonds instead of just.... smut............  
> This series was not supposed to be primarily smut, i just have some really horny friends -_-  
> Enjoy the Magnus Barry And Lup Fluff!

The Institute for Planar Research and Exploration is a surprisingly trans-friendly place. At least, that was what Barry had thought when he was first hired. He'd quickly learned that humans are a transphobic and sexist species just in general, culturally, and because he was hired by a dwarf, the entire question of his gender and sexuality was off the table before he even entered the interview room.

Right now, he's not working for the same sector as the one which hired him to the IPRE a few years ago. His current head of research is a man named Dr. Davenport, and they're only a few months away from completing the technology they started at the beginning of the year – a bond engine, perfectly fit to fly them off the fucking planet. Barry is so excited by the prospect that he has to stop himself from thinking about it more often than not.

On the side he started making hormones, with permission which had turned into enthusiastic encouragement from his superiors when he figured out how to make usable testosterone for several different species. The arcanist cook Taako kept bugging him to work out estrogen, too, til he finally found a working formula. Then he disappeared entirely, and Barry's seen him maybe twice since. Strange.

Barry passes, now, which is very nice when interacting with humans (He's still never sure what humans will think of his transness, even though the IPRE has a no-nonsense policy) but the fact of the matter is that no one has really invented any way to permanently alter bodies beyond what hormones would allow. He had a head start with the hormones. Other people had tried it before him. But he's not a transmutation wizard, and he's not a surgeon. He would have no idea where to start on his breasts or his genitals.

The final problem on that list is that Barry Bluejeans is a fighter. He fights. He needs to exercise. And he most definitely doesn't want to out himself in the locker room. No matter how co-ed this place gets, Barry still doesn't feel safe.

He figures out the schedules of most of the other people who visit the gym and works his way around those so he'll leave the gym itself to an empty locker room. It's not a perfect solution, but it's something, and it'll keep him safe for now.

Logically, Barry hadn't planned on having company in the locker room while he was only wearing his binder. Hearing the door open almost sent him into a panic but – this is his full binder, not the half binder, so he can pass it off as a t-shirt. Despite this, he huddled near the end of a row of lockers and made himself as small and invisible as possible while he listened to the other person thud around. They walked into view for a second, unlocking a locker directly across from the row that Barry was hiding in.

It's Magnus, a human security officer who works in Barry's vicinity.

Magnus Burnsides can be described as either a dog, a bear, or the kind of man who joins fights even if he doesn't know how they started. He's six-foot-three and entirely made of muscle. Barry, on the inverse, is five-seven and a little chubby. He only joins fights when he can reason himself into it- And he's certainly sparred with Magnus before, but their relationship has remained mostly that of the scientist and the security guard he greets in the hallways when he's done for the evening. He doubts Magnus has ever seen him with any less than a loose t-shirt on. He has no idea what Magnus's opinions on gender are, either. (A few times he's noticed that Magnus paints his nails, so he has hope. But a six foot man with sideburns so big they hide his ears is still intimidating.)

Magnus turns around, spots Barry, and grins. “Oh, hey! Doctor… Bluejeans, right? Crazy names club.”

Barry swallows and stands. He's not going to get out of this conversation now that it has started, so he's just going to have to hope that Magnus doesn't make too many connections. “Yeah. Uh. You can call me Barry, it's fine.” He chuckles. “I don't think anyone calls me Doctor Bluejeans.”

He steps into the light of the overhead and Magnus immediately sizes him up. “Holy shit, I didn't know you were _ripped_.”

“Uh--” Ripped? He's not exactly weak, but…

“How did you get your pecs to look like that? Do you use the machines? I don't really, because I like a natural look I guess, but man.”

“You-you've seen me with a t-shirt on before, Magnus.”

“Yeah, but not a muscle shirt.”

That's what he thinks the binder is? Holy fucking hell. Barry almost laughs out loud. No, shit, he does laugh out loud, and Magnus looks a little confused for a moment. Barry feels like he's going to disintegrate. What does he say here? Can he safely reveal that he's trans?

Fuck it. This place isn't run by humans. If Magnus is transphobic Barry can get him fired. If he gets beat up, well, Magnus will definitely get fired for that.

“Uh, yeah, this isn't a muscle shirt, Magnus. It's a binder.”

“A binder? What are you – Ohhhhhh.” Magnus runs a hand through his hair. “Okay, that makes sense. That's really-- have you been exercising in a binder this whole time?”

“Ye-eah?”

“Isn't that like bad for your ribs? Can you breathe? Shouldn't you wear a sports bra or something?”

“You're not like, upset? That I don't have-- that I'm not—”

Magnus's face falls. “Wait, are you afraid you'll get hurt if people find out you're trans?”

“Yeah.” Barry tries to find something else to look at. Magnus's toenails are painted bright blue. He's wearing those man-sandals one finds at drugstores.

“You can get them fired if they discriminate against you.”

“Yeah, but I'd rather not deal with the emotional trauma at all.”

Magnus nods.

“Oh shit!” Magnus says. “That's why you were working on hormone stuff in your free time, wasn't it?”

Barry laughs. “Yeah. Uh. Were you going to work out?”

“Oh! Yeah. I'll meet you out there!”

“See you.”

Magnus throws a towel over his shoulder, grabs his waterbottle, and heads in the direction of the gym. Barry stands in the locker room for a good minute and a half before shaking himself out of what he just experienced.

He could throw a t-shirt on over his binder and join Magnus as it is, but Magnus is right-- a bra would be a gajillion times safer. It should only be him and Magnus out there anyway, right now. It's a lull time, that was the point.

He pulls his binder off, puts on a bra he keeps in his locker actually – literally – in case something goes bad and he hurts his ribs exercising in the binder, and meets Magnus in the gym.

Magnus grins at him and they fight. It's pretty nice. Last time they had sparred it had been mandatory practice, and this time it's a much friendlier experience. Magnus does land him on his back several times but he also seems to recognize when something hurts too much. Magnus himself, however, doesn't seem to feel pain at all.

“Hhoow,” Barry laughs, rubbing a bruise on his back as they head back to the locker room. “That was really good.”

“Yeah!” Magnus is practically skipping. “Wanna do this again sometime?”

“Maybe not _tomorrow_ , but sure.”

“Oh, did I hurt you?”

“Not really, but the bruises won't go away in one afternoon.”

They head to their lockers. Barry worries, for a moment, that Magnus might be uncomfortable seeing his breasts, but then he turns and Magnus is already butass naked, so he shrugs and changes into his binder without question.

He leaves the gym feeling lighter.

 

It's nice. For the first time in half a decade, Barry's boss isn't the only person he can talk to about his gender. They meet up again, same time, and Barry can feel the difference. Fighting a person is so much more fulfilling than fighting a bag or just doing a workout cycle. Besides, he has a friend now. A friend who isn't also his superior. He does his best to ignore the fact that he's probably Magnus's superior, by virtue of being on the bond engine team.

Making bonds is good. It feels good. Barry feels a little more grounded by the bonds he creates, especially now that he's working on that project.

 

A few weeks later, Barry realizes something: Magnus is the only one who ever comes back to his lab. Long story short, he doesn't have to wear his binder in the lab. He ends up taking it off upon arrival, because the idea of walking through the halls of the IPRE headquarters without it is mortifying. He trusts Magnus not to be upset at seeing him topless.

He notices how much easier it is to work almost immediately. Being able to get a full breath is rewarding.

Barry really appreciates only having to wear it about three hours out of his workday.

He looks up to a knock on the door.

“Barry?” It's Magnus, standing outside.

Barry snaps his fingers and the door unlocks.

Magnus wastes no time in striding over to the lab bench he's working at, throwing his arms across it. “So hey, Barry, I was told to give you this notebook. The chronicler was recording stuff down at the workshop and thought you'd want it.”

“D'you mean Lucretia?” Barry takes the notebook, shuffling through it.

“Yeah, her.”

“Thanks.” He puts it aside.

Magnus stays at his seat for a few more minutes as Barry gets back to his work. Lucretia keeps her journals impeccably well organized; he can flip to the lab experiment ideas page without even looking.

“Why aren't you out to the whole Institute?”

“I am. They all know I'm a man.” Barry doesn't look up.

“You know what I mean. The IPRE has a no nonsense policy about transphobia.”

Barry sighs. Closes Lucretia's notebook. Puts his chin on his hand. Magnus is fiddling with hangnails and watching him nervously.

“I come from a not great town, Magnus. I used to visit my family. They told me to stay out when my voice started deepening. I haven't been back.” He shrugs. “I-I, well, I work here. A fuss could lose me my job even if the place is trans friendly. I don't know the cultures of other species well enough to be sure I'm safe.”

“Oh,” Magnus says. “I'm sorry.”

Barry sighs. He goes to open up his notebook again. He feels a little raw, now, having said all that, despite it just being a fact and trusting Magnus with his backstory more than anyone else. Well, short of perhaps Davenport, who knew it because he had spilled it when trying to get permission to make hormones, and later, explaining why he doesn't go home on holidays. He can't find the page he was on.

“I should introduce you to Lup.”

“Who?”

“Lup. Uh, Taako's sister? She's a mapmaker and an arcanist and a cook and she's really awesome.”

“Taako? The elven chef who-” he pauses. “Him?”

“Yeah. Have you met him? I know he's come back here sometimes.”

“Yeah, I have. He asked me to make estrogen.” Barry frowns.

“I bet it was for Lup.”

“His sister?”

“Yeah, they're twins. She's trans. Elves don't do the gender thing like humans.”

“Wait—really? There's been a trans person in the IPRE this whole time and I didn't know?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck,” Barry enthuses. “Yeah. I gotta meet Lup.”

Magnus laughs.

“She's gonna think you're a nerd.”


	2. Chapter 2

Lup is a tall, elven woman, very similar to her brother, with a few more curves and an undercut. She has her hair dutch-braided back from her face, and her arms are covered in burn scars all the way to the elbow. Her eyes are a pretty gold, her brows and lashes paler than her skin.

Lup is gorgeous.

She's sitting at a desk and working on a big project of some kind-- some sketches are laid out on a gridmap, unfinished but highly mathematical. She looks up when Magnus pushes through the door, grinning. Barry ducks behind the wall.

“Heyo, Maggie! Sup?”

Magnus strides up to Lup's project without any inhibition. “Hey Lup! I brought a friend!!”

She groans. “Please tell me it's not another dog.”

“No, he's a scientist! He's that guy who was working on hormones, remember? His name is Barry!”

“Wait, Bluejeans? Isn't he a nerd?”

“You're a nerd, Lup. You're doing _math_.”

“Yeah, but at least it's not science. Does he know how to get drunk?”

“He's like thirty, so probably?”

“That's so fucking young-- wait, is he human?”

“Yeah.”

“Ahhhh.”

Barry peers around the wall again. Lup is completely engrossed in her conversation with Magnus.

“Wait, is he the guy you were fighting the other day? Do you have a crush?”

“Shut up, Lup.”

“You said you brought him--” Lup notices Barry, then, when she looks over at the door. Her expression transforms smoothly into a smug grin, one eyebrow quirked. “Well. What do ya know. Deffos a nerd.”

Magnus takes a step back. “Um. Yeah. Barry, this is Lup. Lup, Barry.”

Lup holds out a hand. It takes Barry a just-awkward amount of time to cross the room to shake it.

“I'm Lup. I find things.” She grins.

“Uh. Barry. I worked on the engine.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“Y-yeah.”   
“Hah. And this chucklefuck is tryina imply that I'm as much of a nerd as _that_?”

Magnus crosses his arms.

“So, Maggie. How's the dog project?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but Barry interrupts. “Dog project?”

“He's tryina get his dog into space.”

“What?” Barry frowns at Magnus.

“I don't understand why the bond engine can't work with human-animal bonds! My bond with Waffle is not weaker than with any _person_ I know, I should--”  
“Magnus, we don't know why the bond engine doesn't work with those bonds.”

Magnus shuts up, looking a little dejected.

“WELL if you two lovebirds are done arguing nerd shit in my office, I needa get back to my _math_.” Lup pulls a long ruler out of her desk drawer with enough force to make the metal twang dramatically.

“Yeah, I have to get back to work too,” Barry says. He backs out the door.

“It was nice meeting you,” Lup smirks as she waves.

“Yeah,” Barry stammers.

Magnus follows him down the hall, hands in pockets.

 

Barry starts wondering about the whole crush thing again when he finds Magnus waiting outside his door even more. They work out together every other afternoon. He starts eating lunch with Magnus. At one point he even takes Magnus back to his dorm. They sit on his little porch and sip cups of tea until two A. M. when Magnus admits he needs to be up early the next morning.

It gets to the point where the two of them are so comfortable in each other's company that Magnus can't exactly corner Barry in the lab. Barry realizes he's sitting on something after a few days.

“Spit it out, then,” Barry says, packing away his lab reports.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you've been meaning to tell me for the past week. I don't bite. Usually.”

“How do you do that?”

Barry zips his bag closed. “What?”  
“You're so confident half the time and the other half you're a mess.”  
“I'm always a mess. Sometimes I don't stammer.” He slings the bag over his shoulder. “Is that what you wanted to say?”

“No, uh.” Magnus holds his hands in front of himself and looks anywhere but Barry's face. “I, uh.”

“Magnus.”

“Ihaveacrushonyou?”

Barry laughs. He regrets it immediately. Lup was right, though. Magnus has a crush. Holy fuck. He did guess, but still. _Still_.

“Sorry.” Magnus reaches for the door handle.

“No, you're—it's fine. I just remembered what Lup said.”

“What did Lup say?” He steps away from the door.

“About you having a crush?” Barry hitches his bag further up onto his shoulder.

Magnus blinks.

Barry sighs and opens the door. “I'll see you later I guess,” He says. In a moment of impulse, instead of just leaving the room, he stands on his tiptoes and kisses Magnus's cheek. He turns and heads down the hall.

He can hear Magnus step out of the lab, but he doesn't turn around. He thinks he might have missed Magnus's cheek, actually. The guy has a beard. It's kinda hard to tell.

 

Back in his dorm, Barry pulls off his socks. He's feeling anxious about the stupid kiss still. He doesn't want to lead Magnus on, but he doesn't want him to feel rejected. Barry's never entirely sure where his own emotions are on shit like this, either. If he was destined to live more than seventy years he'd probably be the king of slow burn. It's kinda too bad he's human, because for all the flings he's had, he's destined to die alone.

Magnus _is_ the nicest man he's met in a good ten years now, though. It wouldn't hurt to take him out. _Be a little honest about your feelings for once though_ , he thinks, flopping back against his pillows.

Too worn out to get up, Barry blinks at the overhead, wishing he could turn it off from a distance. It buzzes with illumination magic. Minutes tick by.

Somewhere below him, the heater kicks on.

Barry finally forces himself to his feet and makes a bowl of ramen for dinner. He'll have to talk to Magnus about this tomorrow.

It… wouldn't hurt to take him out. Even if they drift apart, maybe they'll still be friends.

Or maybe one of them will get left behind, and they'll be separated indefinitely.

Who knows.

 

Magnus is stiff and formal when Barry shows up at the lab the next morning. Barry gets the sense that he alienated the man a little. He devotes himself to his work in the hopes of getting it off his mind.

After the fifth torn page in his notebook, Barry realizes that he really, really would like to take Magnus out on a date. He folds his shaking hands over his crumpled notes and thinks on this for a minute.

The last person Barry dated was a man back in his hometown. Honestly fuck his hometown. Things are different here at the IPRE.

Barry takes a deep breath and returns his attention to his notes, determined.

 

He catches Magnus before he leaves for the day.

“Hey Magnus, do you like coffee?”

Magnus does a clear double-take, pausing by the door. “Uh, yeah?” He squeaks.

“Do you want to get some sometime?”

“Sure??” Magnus turns around. “Do you- like -are you saying-- like a date?”

“Yeah. I know a place. You around tomorrow evening?”

“Yeah I-- are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I uh- oh wow,” Magnus lets out a breath. “Okay. Fuck yeah.”

Barry smiles. “See you then, Burnsides.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, Magnus doesn't actually like coffee all that much. He orders a nice, lovely oolong and levels up.


End file.
